Since being a toddler, John Ramzy has come to know Ripon’s Egyptian Festival as what he called a “taste of home.”
It’s where he’s reminded of family back in New Cairo, where they’d gather to grill barbecue and hold river parties along the Nile. Here, surrounded by wafts of seared kafta and faces from the Coptic Orthodox church he’s grown up around, it’s like he’s back in Egypt.
“It feels like we’re all part of that same family,” said Ramzy, 25. “It feels like we’re in Egypt together, enjoying a nice little break.”
Since the early 2000s, the two-day festival has brought authentic Egyptian culture to Ripon, a city surrounded by farmland that sits about a 20-minute drive south of Stockton. As the county’s only festival dedicated to Egyptian culture, it draws hundreds of attendees for their fill of everything from stuffed grape leaves to sweet, cream-filled baklava, traditional Sa’idi stick dances and guided tours of the church’s Coptic architecture.
“Everything you see here, it reflects the Egyptian culture,” said Kerollos Hanna, a priest at the St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church, which puts on the event.
Hanna, born in Egypt, serves as one of two priests at the church, whose congregation of about 80 families practices a faith rooted in ancient Egypt. The word “copt,” Hanna explained, “means Egyptian,” deriving from the ancient Greek word for the country’s people. It eventually came to refer to Egypt’s Christian population. Although estimates of Egypt’s Christian population vary, census data has placed it as being 5% of the country’s population. Some have understood the figure to be higher, at 10%.
Hanna grew up in a small town, one similar in size to Ripon. Details like the highway cutting through the city mirror what he grew up with, making Ripon feel familiar.
“Ripon itself reminds me of Egypt all the time,” Hanna said. “And the festival, it adds to that, I feel I am in Egypt.”
At the far end of the church’s grounds, Verina Gouda tends to a booth lined with Egyptian wares. Like Ramzy, she started volunteering at the festival when she was a preteen, helping wherever she was needed, from the dessert stand that serves treats like baklava and kunafa to church tours.
But the booth she tends today has become her main post. Known as the festival’s bazaar, it’s where festival attendees can find items brought over from Cairo, including papyrus prints depicting Egyptian hieroglyphs that line the shop’s ceiling.
In 2022, Gouda was able to visit Egypt for the first time, having been born in the U.S. to parents who had immigrated decades ago. After that visit, she said she was able to connect what she saw in Egypt to the festival she had grown up attending.
“This is like a really good application of how Egypt is — the people, the vibes, the music, and how we connect with everybody,” Gouda said.
In the basement, where the church’s kitchen is located, Sawsan Fakuos let out a long, high-pitched zaghrouta. It’s a trill she learned from her grandmother, who used the same celebratory vocalization at weddings. But on Sunday, Fakuos’ marked the end of a long day of cooking for the festival. By late Sunday afternoon, the food had run out.
Just before Fakuos began to clean her daughter, Martina Fakuos, came to show off her new henna — a cross and a heart drawn across her forearm. Dressed casually that day, she wore an Egyptian coin she had fashioned into a ring, an item she had inherited from her great-grandfather.
Martina lives in Oakdale, making her Sunday commute to the church about 20 minutes. Before, she attended the church in San Jose, one of only a handful of Coptic Orthodox parishes in Northern California.
For about a month, her mother had been preparing food for the festival. She was one of many women at the church who, Martina said, had spent weeks working to make the festival a success.
Seeing the whole congregation come together for the festival leaves Martina with a warmth she said she can’t quite describe.
“This congregation, they love each other so much,” Martina, 37, said.